Server Downtime further exposes Nintendo’s Poor Planning

The recent server downtime of Nintendo’s eShop and internet services on the Wii U and the 3DS is the latest of a long line of Nintendo’s poor planning issues that has been plaguing them for a while. The debut of Miiverse on the 3DS would have put a large load on their servers and the Poke Bank was the breaking point when it was released in Japan which officially melted down their servers. From consoles launches to game software release dates – these has been pattern of poor planning and predictions of common sense in the future by CEO Satora Iwata.
(3DS, Dev, GameCube, Industry, Nintendo DS, Wii, Wii U)

Sometimes you can't always stick to tradition. In an ever changing market you've got to adapt. I mean they're online is terrible and should of least been revamped so it could match up to XBL or the PSN. Maybe some Gamecube classics on there and other stuff.

As you said this won't change under Iwata....he needs to go, he's holding the company back.

If the new market would require them to drop the pad, go third party, ditch the 3ds for making mobile games, and ditch the wii u entirely in favor of a new console before the current one has even picked up its best games, i would rather they stay stuck in the past. A lot of people have been making a lot of very stupid suggestions regarding nintendo lately.

I'm a Nintendo Fanboy and even I admit. They fucked up. How the hell were they that unprepared? Nothing like failing your customers on christmas day. I brought my Wii U to my dad's for netflix. I actually had to go to the wii side to even do it. Embarassing.

I hope this gets nintendo to finally adopt an subscriptions based service. Why can't nintendo just make me pay 50 bucks a year and just say, "you know all our nes and SNES catalog? Unlimited access to that with the subscription." Hell I'd pay 70 if they just offered all Nintendo NES and SNES titles to play openly.

Then they can afford servers needed to be a popular online game system.

Yup just how Sony poorly planned their psn network when all you Sony drones' credit card information was stolen and their servers went down for months. Yeah, I guess Sony is incompetent, huh? And guess what? Nintendo's network is back up lol.

I had issues for a day or two but everything is working fine now. I don't see how this came up as poor planning? Didn't GTA5 get plagued with these same issues? Large amounts of people trying to sign in at once? Would it seem like poor planning for Sony to always get hacked? S*** happens guys. If its down for a few days it just means we need patience for Nintendo to sort this out. NOT the end of the world. I do feel bad for the people picking up there consoles and having sign issues. You can still play single player games till it's back up.

All off the big 3 have been having server issues, and yet somehow this is being spun into yet another doom and gloom article on nintendo? Wow,i guess that one article was telling the truth; nintendo bashing has become some sort of sick fad.-_-;;

This article was about their decision making - mostly on their internet front and the Wii U. The 3DS has had a perfect year in terms of what they have done to it.

The Wii U in 2014 needs something like what the 3DS was treated to this year. Nintendo is never doomed - it just has a few areas where people would like them to apply some common sense and hopefully steer the ship right with the Wii U.

Yeah well, don't games like X, Bayonetta 2, and Hyrule Warriors count as steps in that direction, as far as their 2014 lineup goes? And s far as their internet stuff goes they've been getting games and discounts on them for a while now, as well as offering games from several generations of their back catalog and sega's machines. Yeah, they haven't offered up a ton of n64 and gc games yet, but still, aside from recent server troubles how have they exactly been doing the internet thing wrong? By not making online multi for every dongle game in their catalog?

And I think the Wii U is gonna have that "3DS like turnaround" next year. With Mario Kart 8,Smash Bros,Bayonetta 2,Hyrule Warriors,Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze,and X. We've seen it slowly happening with Super Mario 3D World and Wind Waker HD and sells picking up.

nope, maybe you are lucky because PSN has been buggy for at least 2 days now, i don't have a PS4 but i'm with a fiend who has one and we tried several times to access PSN. Don't take my word for it there are plenty of people saying the same.

Personally i don't care,2 days no online is no big deal for me, but its people choosing to focus on Nintendo while the same is happening to Sony/MS even steam was down for bit on xmas.

That's why I hate the hypocrisy of people that are on Nintendo's case for the last 6 months or so.

I love Nintendo,I bought every single system they sold(maybe not all since I didn't buy the virtual boy LOL dodged a bullet there) and I hate how everyone is dissing on them lately for something as simple as lack of software and a simple holidays crash in the network.

I will see these same people biting their hands after the Wii U sales are up the roof when games like Mario Kart is released,it's already picking up with Super Mario 3D World.

I've been logged in to PSN without any issues what-so-ever..... Even so, comparing PSN to Nintendo's network is comparing apple's to oranges. Nintendo's network does NOT get flooded with heavy traffic what so ever considering hardly anything really relies or is build around the network. PSN and Xbox Live are built for their respective consoles as in, without one, you don't get the full experience. I laugh at the people who are comparing Nintendo's network going down and saying... what about the other guys. Tell me when Nintendo has EVER had a flood of heavy online users (like that from Halo or COD) stress test their network. They are no where near prepared to handle even an ounce of that traffic.

I've specifically been playing multiplayer in Shadow fall, so I'm still unsure of the issues you're talking about. I have noticed that I get a message every once in a while notifying me that PSN is busy... but nothing else. No errors, no delays, nothing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't all 3 consoles have the same issue these past few days? It's called Christmas guys. Tons of people have been hooking up their new consoles and none of the big 3 were completely ready.

There are alot of good points here that shouldn't be ignored, especially with regard to development time, Nintendo should have had more coming at a steadier place this year when convincing new adopters would be easiest. How the lull in Wii titles towards the end of its life didn't translate into more games during the Wii u launch window astounds me. The third party problems are a different beast altogether but at least the Indies are there, that's something Nintendo has really been able to embrace. Something has been done since the launch to decrease Dev time though and that was the unifying of the 3ds and Wii u teams. I really think Nintendo expected more 3rd party titles to fill the gap between games but old ports at full price don't sell well.I still blame the lack of 3rd party success on the AAA companies though since that was their decision to make. I think the most damning thing of all is the lack of a unified account system. That should have been up on day one and a major selling point for them. Bringing the Wii virtual console over with an account system tied to Club Nintendo would have given them a huge wealth of games available at launch and cementing their dedication to digital purchases. I think the Wii u is great but there are definitely some things that haven't been done well and this article does an OK job of pointing some of them out.

Thank you for reading the article and highlighting the key points that I have been trying to address. N4G has a habit of reading the title and the first few words of a article and than give a opinion.

Th Indies have been a strong point for Nintendo's eShop and have enjoyed many games there. Unified accounts has to be something coming soon. They have known this for a while now and I really hope this happens.

How quickly everyone forgets that PSN was down for quite awhile in 2013 with a breach. I guess that's okay and smart planning for Sony but when Nintendo is down a few days it's poor planning on their part. It's not the end of the world and it'll be back up as soon as they can make it stable. I got on last night after being unable to for a few hours.

I don't think the server problems are directly correlated to Iwata like the article implied. Just because you manage the entire company doesn't mean that every single issue can be traced back to you and only you.

i got my first handheld this Christmas in years and while at first i wasn't happy i couldn't access the eshop now that i can i forgive nintendo,after games like gunman clive,steamworld dig,mutant mudds and liberation maiden i got nothing but a big as hell smile on my face.

Stop defending Nintendo. This is way worse than just poor planning. It's plain idiotic reluctancy to succeed in any other way than old ways you're used to succeed in.

I hate to be the one but someone needs to say what we're all thinking: classic Japanese pride. We're talking about corporate leaders born and raised in the most prideful nation on Earth here. Most people seem to have forgotten that and/or don't know the Japanese culture very well. Stop putting our western world stamps on this issue. Nintendo knows exactly what they're doing and how much their stubborness is harming their business.

Yeah, yeah ~ It's always a major issue when Nintendo has a problem. We've seen this before; do you really have to stoop to that asinine level as well just or the sake of getting clicks?

Royally pathetic.

Is it a "lack of poor planning" when XBOX Live goes out? What about PSN? Steam? What about GTA Online's debut?

Servers can only handle so much information at once. With so many people trying to connect at the same time, it becomes overloaded and crashes. This happens frequently to many online systems (how many times does N4G go blank?). So it's not like this is some new occurrence that N-Network is experiencing difficulties. Acting like this happens frequently.

Before Miiverse 3DS released, they had extended server maintenance, meaning that they already prepped their servers for the influx of traffic. But as I said, server overloads can still happen.

Why should they have delayed a finished app, and kept people waiting longer? Ubisoft tried that and got some serious backlash. It's not exactly the same scenario this time - but the principles of the matter are the same. Nintendo had already announced that it would be coming soon. When is 2 months ever considered soon?